Accidents: Cars To Have ‘Black Boxes’ By 2014 (Read 180 times)

There are indications that all cars manufactured from 2014 will be equipped with Event Data Recorders, also known as EDRs or black boxes.

As it is with airplanes, the technology is expected to give regulators and law enforcement agents accurate  information about the events leading to an accident involving every car.

Car manufacturers have always relied on air bags and seat belts to give occupants of vehicles maximum protection in the event of crash. Some luxury cars have between six and 10 air bags.


The black box in cars is expected to start next year from the United States, its initiator, the National Highway Traffic Administration has said.

Black boxes began showing up in cars in 1990 when General Motors introduced them for quality control purposes, according to a report published on Tuesday by auto.aol.com.

It, however, did not specify when other countries, including Nigeria, would receive such vehicles.

Experts note that this will depend on the car manufacturers and safety/standard agencies of individual nations.

It quoted the New York Times as reporting 96 per cent of cars in the US were now carrying some sort of black box under the dashboard.

Automotive black boxes are different from those that are in airplanes, which continuously record audio, mechanical functions and location, according to the report.

In cars, the box only transmits information to the car’s computer in the event of a crash or air bag deployment. Recorders capture vehicle speed, brake activity, crash forces and even seatbelt use at the time of the event.

The boxes have long been used by car companies to assess the performance of their vehicles. But data stored in the devices is increasingly being used to identify safety problems in cars and as evidence in traffic accidents and criminal cases. And the trove of data inside the boxes has raised privacy concerns, including questions about who owns the information, and what it can be used for, even as critics have raised questions about its reliability.

To regulators, law enforcement authorities and insurance companies, the data is an indispensable tool to investigate crashes.

The black boxes “provide critical safety information that might not otherwise be available to NHTSA to evaluate what happened during a crash — and what future steps could be taken to save lives and prevent injuries,” David L. Strickland, the safety agency’s administrator, said in a statement.

But to consumer advocates, the data is only the latest example of governments and companies having too much access to private information. Once gathered, they say, the data can be used against car owners, to find fault in accidents or in criminal investigations, especially the police as in the Nigeria’s situation. “These cars are equipped with computers that collect massive amounts of data,” said Khaliah Barnes of the Electronic Privacy Information Centre, a Washington-based consumer group. “Without protections, it can lead to all kinds of abuse.”

What’s more, consumer advocates say, government officials have yet to provide consistent guidelines on how the data should be used.

“There are no clear standards that say, this is a permissible use of the data and this is not,” Barnes said.

Fourteen states, including New York, have passed laws that say that, even though the data belongs to the vehicle’s owner, law enforcement officials and those involved in civil litigation can gain access to the black boxes with a court order.

In these states, lawyers may subpoena the data for criminal investigations and civil lawsuits, making the information accessible to third parties, including law enforcement or insurance companies that could cancel a driver’s policy or raise a driver’s premium based on the recorder’s data.

Current regulations require that the presence of the black box be disclosed in the owner’s manual. But the vast majority of drivers who do not read the manual thoroughly may not know that their vehicle can capture and record their speed, brake position, seat belt use and other data each time they get behind the wheel.

Unlike the black boxes on airplanes, which continually record data including audio and system performance, the cars’ recorders capture only the few seconds surrounding a crash or air bag deployment. A separate device extracts the data, which is then analyzed through computer software.

The Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers, a Washington-based trade association that represents 12 automakers including General Motors and Chrysler, said it supported the mandate because the recorders helped to monitor passenger safety.

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